68
me, but Mrs. Ras Mohun said, "Just
ignore him."
I let go of the spoon and got soft-
boiled egg on the tablecloth and on my
bib.
"Only naughty boys throw their
eggs around," Mrs. Ras Mohun said.
Mr. Ras Mohun tried to show me
how to hold the spoon steady. Then he
left, and Mrs. Ras Mohun washed my
hands and face with water poured
from a jug into a basin.
There was a thin, sharp, insistent
sound from downstairs.
"What is that?" I asked, getting
interested.
"What-that? That's Uncle's hand
bell," Mrs. Ras Mohun said. "He is
calling the boys and girls to the morn-
ing class."
"Where are the girls?"
"The girls live in the girls' dormi-
tory, and the boys live in the boys'
dormitory. "
Mr. Ras Mohun returned and took
me downstairs to the main classroom,
where he left me with the school's
Matron.
"Where do you live?" I asked her.
"In the girls' dormitory."
The Matron showed me a sort of
wooden frame with a lot of beads on it.
She counted the beads row by row,
having me follow her fingers with my
fingers and say the numbers after her.
I got up to eighteen. 1 liked the way a
mere touch could make the beads spin,
and thought this was a nice game.
After a while, I knew that Mr. Ras
Mohun was coming, because I recog-
nized his walk-short, quick footsteps
that click-clicked on the bare floor.
"It's lunchtime," he said, taking me
by the hand. "Come along."
"I want to go there," I said, and I
pulled him in the direction of the ve-
randa, from which came the sounds of
brass utensils on the bare floor and of
boys laughing and talking.
He laughed. "They are poor or-
phans. Come. Auntie is waiting for us
upstairs. "
O NE morning, a few days after my
arrival, Mrs, Ras Mohun was
sitting at her dressing table.
"What are you doing?" 1 asked.
"I am putting some cream and pow-
der on my face."
"Can I have some?"
She bent down and put a big dab of
cold cream on my face.
"More," I said.
She laughed. She covered my whole
face with cream and rubbed it in.
"Some powder, too."
She laughed again. "Is that what
your mummy did to you, V edi?"
1 had to stop and think, and then I
remembered how 1 liked to climb into
Mamaji's lap and feel her hands as she
rubbed cream and powder into my face
until 1 smelled 1ike her.
1 tried to climb into Mrs. Ras
Mohun's lap, but she pushed me away.
"Go wash your hands and face," she
said.
"I want more, Auntie."
"Go away and wash," she said.
"Powder and cream may not cost
money in your rich home, but here
they cost lots of money,"
"How much?"
"Lots of money."
"Tell Ayah to give me my bath!" I
yelled.
"The ayah is busy with Heea,"
Mrs. Ras Mohun said. "You're a big
boy now. You have to learn to take
your own bath."
"I want Ayah."
"You were spoiled at home," she
said. "There is no special ayah for you
here. You have to learn to do things
by yourself."
Heea started crying. Mrs. Ras
Mohun ran to her. 1 followed, and
tugged at Mrs. Ras Mohun, but she
would not stop tending to Heea.
M ANY years later, Daddyji told
me how it happened that he sent
me to Mr. Ras Mohun's school.
"When you lost your sight, I didn't
know anything about the blind," he
said. 1 was hardly four when, in the
winter of 1938, 1 was left blind from
meningitis. "Like anyone else, 1 had,
of course, often seen blind people
stumbling along, groping their way
down a city street. They usually car-
ried a staff in one hand and a tin cup
in the other. Also, as a public-health
ófficer, 1 had visited many villages and
seen blind villagers heing cared for by
t=iI IIII '=' II /I t=D
:r.O,"v',
the joint-family system, which in those
days took in any and all relatives. But
all those blind people lived little better
than wounded animals. I made up my
mind that my blind son would never
have to depend on the charity of rela-
tives. I wanted you to be independent,
like your sisters and brother. I wanted
you to be able to hold your head high
in any company. I started looking
around for a school for you, and was
told that there were hardly a score of
schools for the blind in the whole
country, and that the two or three best
ones were in Calcutta and Bombay.
Calcutta was out of the question. The
Black Hole doesn't suit us Punjabis.
But I immediately placed advertise-
ments in the agony columns of news-
papers in Bombay. That's how 1 hap-
pened to hear from Mr. Ras Mohun,
of Dadar School for the Blind.
"Mr. Ras Mohun wrote me that he
was young, that he was married, and
that he had a year-old daughter, and
from this I surmised that he was a
good family man. He said that he was
a Christian and America-returned,
and from this I concluded that he
would not have the fatalistic attitude
of our Hindu brethren, who regard
blindness as a curse, and also that he
would be conversant with progressive,
Western methods of educating the
blind, I wrote to Mr. Ras Mohun that
I knew that the food and accommoda-
tions at his school would probably not
be up to the standard of our home, and
therefore 1 wondered if you could go
to his school but live and board with
him. 1 told him that, provided he
could educate you, money would be no
object. Mr. Ras Mohun wrote back to
say that he would treat you like his
own son, and that the expenses for
room and board with him would come
to forty rupees a month. As it hap-
pened, we were paying seventy-five ru-
pees for your brother Om in Bishop
Cotton School in Simla, and that was
one of the top boarding schools. So 1
imagined that your room and board
would be comparable, because Bombay
was probably much cheaper than
Simla.
"At first, your dear mother did not
pay much attention to my efforts to
find a school for you. She was trying
all kinds of quack remedies-various
eyedrops-that. faith healers told her
would make you see. Anyhow, she
thought that, as always, I was writing
-letters, planning, and dreaming.
When I told her about my determina-
tion to send you to Mr. Ras Mohun's
school, she started crying that she